Billy burst out the front door. He had the gun up and was waving it wildly at the Cherokee, which slammed to a halt. Billy made no effort to take cover, mad with fear and anger—yelling, crying for them to get back, to go away, to leave him alone. Hendricks was barking orders back at Billy to lower the gun, but it was lost in the babel of Billy’s panic.

Gibson came around the corner. He had to get to Billy before someone got hurt. In a moment of slow-motion lucidity, he realized that he believed Billy. Believed the whole preposterous story. More than that, he cared about him. He couldn’t bear the idea of Billy getting hurt.

Jenn and Hendricks closed the gap and were only fifteen feet from the porch. Everyone yelling. Hendricks moving to the left, trying to split Billy’s attention. Billy more and more frantic. Gun pitching back and forth between his two antagonists. Spittle flew from his lips.

Gibson took two steps and drove his shoulder hard into Billy’s ribs. Together they clattered over a wicker armchair. The gun came loose and skidded across the porch. Billy struggled for a moment, but Gibson was far too strong. Billy lay under him, panting.

“Just be cool, Billy. Be cool. It’s going to be all right.”

Billy struggled fitfully, unconvinced.

“Gibson! Throw your gun over the railing.” Jenn’s voice.

“I don’t have a gun, you asshole. And I kind of have my hands full here; could one of you maybe give me a hand?”

Benjamin Lombard jotted notes in the margin of his acceptance speech. The convention was weeks away, and the race remained far from decided, but tinkering with the speech helped distract him from what was going on in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Son-of-a-bitch George Abe waging his own one-man crusade as usual.

Crafty little prick had somehow triggered the dismantling of his business within minutes of getting pulled over. By the time Titus’s people had shown up there wasn’t a screw to screw or pencil to push. Abe Consulting had been wiped clean from the face of the earth. Exactly Abe’s style. As was denying it. He’d put on a convincing little performance about how he was as baffled as anyone. Even after Titus’s boy put a licking on him.

Lombard glanced up at the monitor; George was still slumped over the interrogation table at Cold Harbor. Titus was an evil little pit bull of a man, there was no doubting that, but Lombard was beginning to doubt his ability to make a breakthrough in a timely fashion. If he knew anything about George it was that it would take more than a few broken ribs to get him to betray his people.